Week 12

Hey everyone. I have nothing to show for this week. I had a passing in the family and it's been really hard. I'll post something over Thanksgiving.

Week 11

I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is The Giraffe is almost done!!!

I've gone in and fixed most of the errors presented to me last week as well as started adding controls to the tongue and fk controls for other areas. I've also added scaling so it should now scale properly. I've also worked on the zebra to help it catch up.

So next week I will be adding in ik/fk switches and trying to fix those stretchy legs. Then hopefully over the break I can do more catch up work and start weight mapping!

Oh, the bad news is fallout 4 came out and I didn't buy it.

Week 10

This week has been very frustrating. My middle mouse button has been acting really funky and it was hard to get a lot of things done. I did some research and trouble shooting and it seems to be a software issue with maya for some reason. So I'm going to reinstall it later tonight after I make this post.

Anyways, this week is basically about trying to help the zebra catch up to the giraffe. Nothing too much to show other than some of the new controls I've put in. I've also allowed my class to play with my rigs a bit and break them, just to tell me what they've noticed. (I told them to not have any high expectations on functionality since it's not a finished rig. I got a lot of great feed back including some pictures that show how they broke it.

According to this picture, the individual found that my hip rotate would actually rotate the entire rig. I'll have to double check that to see whether my hip control is under the root control, or vise versa. If it's the latter, then it's working fine and this picture actually proves it.


After a second look, it appears that one of the stomach joints and back joints are out of alignment. I'll have to go in and fix that.

This individual took the base neck control and asked me if the pivot was supposed to be located where he clicked. The answer is no, and I'm glad he showed me so I can now go back and change that pivot.








One individual asked why there was a white triangle showing when one of the ik handles was selected. Fortunately that is not an issue, rather just shows which direction the joint will bend.

This picture is a little difficult to decipher as to how they arrived at this giraffe that now looks like a brontosaurus/poodle hybrid. I see that they broke it, but I'll have to experiment on how they arrived here. My point is "Thanks for telling me it's broken, but HOW is it broken and HOW did you break it." That would be very helpful and faster.








So there are a lot of things to work on so it looks like these same issues will be applied to the zebra rig. Next week, fix it week!

Week 9

So last week I said I would catch up with the zebra, but I encountered a little problem. Nothing was organized and everything was a mess. Controls weren't grouped, clusters were out in the open, some controls were parented under other controls, and some item coordinates were not frozen. So this week was all about doing that instead. If you can't keep your work clean, how can you expect others to use your rig, let alone have the rig work itself. Here are some pictures to show that the giraffe is mostly done and the zebra is closing in behind.

I have also been testing out nvidia's shadowplay so I can start making videos for the rigs themselves. I got it to work, but I don't feel comfortable with taking the videos just yet. Next week. In the meantime, here is a little video I took of the giraffe before the cleanup.

Giraffe from Travis Souza on Vimeo.

(Post note: It seems my middle mouse button is acting funky in maya. I hope it isnt broken)

Week 8

Halfway through the semester. So I went about trying to fix a little IK problem I found with my helper IKs. I noticed that two of my IK handles in the front legs had mysteriously disappeared at some point. So I went in and added them in as I was making the Helpers for the front legs.

I was not sure what was going on, but I was able to fix it despite taking several hours to figure out the situation and as to why everything was acting funky. Because the bottom of a giraffe's foot is so different in it's build (I blame the foot being off the ground) It makes determining where IK handles go a little difficult. But at last, I've fixed them. Al be it with a little awkwardness. But nothing a little pole vector constraint won't fix. Sadly the stretch controls are not all working properly, so I'll have to fix that this weekend.





So I've been beating up this giraffe in my mind and my peer Cameron is wishing for his rigged zebra. So next week, I am returning to it and essentially copying all of these controls over to it.

Week 7

Week 7 was a little bit of a hassle because I ran into a interesting problem that I personally caused myself. Before I get there, I went in and parented all of the controls in the appropriate order in the outliner. Everything flows now.

Now my problem occurred when I started playing with the IKs in the legs. I decided to put in a helper IK system as I was taught to when I first learned how to rig, but then I went and decided to play around with the IK settings and all hell broke loose. Even the helper was practically destroyed and I was freaking out as to where I needed to even begin on fixing it. I first went and put all the settings I played with back to their original setting, but low and behold, that didn't work. So now I had to figure out how to fix this properly. I went in and broke the leg system appart, took down all connections, deleted joints that were not mirroring the other side, and even deleted a few IKs. It took me a few hours to fix, but I was able to get it working again in it's original state before I messed with the controls.

Because the giraffe's leg is so long and it's knee starts so high up, simply lifting the foot control causes the knee to extend instead of bend, so a flex control was necessary to counteract this little flaw. But it works and looks fine, just requires an additional control. At this point, all 4 legs have helper IKs and flex controls. I wanted to get around to the stretchy back and legs, but it's been a very busy week. ("Life finds a way" - Ian Malcom)

Week 6

Alright, another week and more work to be done. This week I went and put in controls, ik splines, and cluster controls for the neck, back, and tail. Not really much to say here that is analytical or different from the Zebra. So I will just Present the pictures. Although, I do have to say, I noticed that I had attached the ear joints to the first neck joint, so I fixed that.

Next week I will move onto what stumped me last semester on the wooly mammoth. The stretchy legs and stretchy back, and I will perfect it until I get it down pat. I will also go back and continue retopologizing the giraffe's eyes, because I'm going to need those to be good enough for blend shapes.